Data Foundry plans to break ground on what it has dubbed the Houston 2 data center on April 10.

Designed by Dallas-based Corgan Associates Inc., the center will have the capability for 60,000 square feet of office space and 60 megawatts of power at its full build-out. The center will also have more than 10 fiber carriers.

New York-based kW Engineering will provide the engineering services for the project, and Atlanta-based Holder Construction Co. will construct the facility. The Houston 2 center is modeled after Data Foundry's flagship 250,000-square-foot Texas 1 data center in Austin.

Although Data Foundry has a small data center, Houston 1, in the Marathon Oil Tower in the Galleria, the Houston 2 building will be the company's first standalone Houston data center.

Edward Henigin, Data Foundry's chief technology officer, said the company sees a growing demand for data center space in Houston, and it intends to serve a variety of enterprise customers as well as website hosting providers.

That said, Henigin explained that Data Foundry is developing the Houston 2 center in phases, and it intends to initially construct a 120,000-square foot building on the Greenspoint land, which should be complete by the first quarter of 2015. If customer demand continues, Henigin said Data Foundry will continue to expand the facility to its full capacity of 350,000 square feet.

"We've been in the Houston market for years, but this is truly a major investment and deployment," Henigin said. "We will not see full value unless we continue expanding beyond this. So, our center is a real engagement for us in Houston."

In Houston, Data Foundry will face fierce competition from other growing data center providers, such as Dallas-based CyrusOne Inc. (Nasdaq: CONE) and San Francisco-based Digital Realty Trust Inc. (NYSE: DLR). As the local competition grows, so do concerns about energy use and space, according to an in-depth Houston Business Journal report.